1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an in-line chromatic harp, and more particularly to an in-line chromatic harp with an adjustable string position guide which allows a harp player to quickly identify the proper string for each note and to play any chromatic scale as if playing the C major scale.
2. Description of the Related Art
An in-line chromatic harp is a string instrument which has the entire twelve semitones in an octave, like the piano, and therefore versatile in music performance. Its strings, like most harps, are arranged in one line. Since in each octave of the in-line chromatic harp has twelve strings instead of seven in a conventional harp, the string spacing is narrower so that each octave will not become too wide for the hands of the harp player. There are chromatic harps designed with two rows of strings, either parallel or cross each other to preserve the string spacing of conventional harp. These harps had their position in the history and have been around for centuries.
The advantage of an in-line chromatic harp is that every one of the twelve semitones in each octave are accessible from the finger tips without any additional mechanical movement such as pushing a foot pedal or moving a lever, which is the standard practice for harp playing. For example, the concert harp requires the player to push one of several pedals in order to play a # or b (sharp or flat) note. For lever harp, the player has to flip a lever to achieve the same result. These require skills and training. It also limits the music one can play and often the music may need to be re-composed to suit the instrument.
The in-line chromatic harp is, however, not without problems or difficulties, either. The most serious problem is that for the in-line chromatic harp the spacing between any two strings is generally narrower than the conventional harp. The standard color codes, red for “C” string and blue for “F” string, are no longer adequate for the purpose of indicating the string position because there are too many strings in between. The regular harp has only two white strings between the red string and blue string, and three white strings between blue string and red string; therefore, there is no difficulty in identifying the location of any note or string. On the other hand, the in-line chromatic harp, if using the same color code to identify the “C” and the “F” strings, there will be four narrowly spaced white strings between the “C” and the “F” strings, and six narrowly spaced white strings between the “F” and the “C” strings. This arrangement becomes rather difficult to play because of the excessive number of the closely spaced strings.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,137,160 discloses a guide to be disposed just behind the string with the same white and black key arrangement like the piano key so that anyone skilled in playing piano or organ can readily acquire proficiency in playing a harp with the guide.